


closure (I thought I didn't need your)

by Kendrene



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials, Daemon Settling, Daemon Touching, F/F, Lena Luthor Finds Out Kara Danvers is Supergirl, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Lesbian Lena Luthor, Minor Lena Luthor/Andrea Rojas, daemon!AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 13:40:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30022611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendrene/pseuds/Kendrene
Summary: The thing about Lena's daemon is that he doesn't settle when he should.There comes a moment in everybody’s life when the changes simply stop. A person wakes up one morning to find their daemon settled into its final form. They will not change again until the death of their human when they just vanish altogether.Turn into Dust.ORLena always thought she was the odd one out, the one with a dark secret. That ends when a mysterious woman saves a plane from crashing into National City's bay.(His Dark Materials but make it Supercorp.)
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 20
Kudos: 234





	closure (I thought I didn't need your)

**Author's Note:**

> And we're back with another mash up nobody asked for. This time, one of my most favorite universes (Pullmann's His Dark Materials) but with a supercorp twist. 
> 
> There's some minor Rojascorp in chapter one, from Lena's past.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Title from [Closure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIFnKqIeEdY) by Taylor Swift
> 
> \- Dren

The thing about Lena's daemon is that he doesn't settle when he should. 

There comes a moment in everybody’s life when the changes simply _stop_. A person wakes up one morning to find their daemon settled into its final form. They will not change again until the death of their human when they just vanish altogether. Turn into Dust.

The event hits at different ages for everyone, but if there is one thing science and theology agree on it is this. 

Settling marks a child’s passage into adulthood. 

Lena goes through her teen years with bated breath, and there are times when she thinks the day has come. Weeks, months, during which Einar doesn't change at all, and it makes her hope.

But always, inevitably, there's a twitch or a flutter and they are back to square one.

"I am sorry," he tells her one day when he's curled up in her lap, his long ears drooping in sadness. "I don't know why I'm different." He's a hare today, and as Lena hugs him a little tighter to her chest, she can feel his heart drum in unison with hers.

"Don't worry about it," she soothes, scratching him behind the ears. "You'll settle too, one day." She aims for a cheerful tone but misses badly, and has to watch his fur grow dark with her grief.

They have to learn to keep the secret, of course, but hours spent practicing in front of a mirror ensure they become real good at it. 

At first, it’s hard. Einar is so attuned to Lena’s emotions that the smallest change in her mood causes him to grow the size of a panther, or shrink down to a hamster. 

But by the time Lena reaches adulthood, Einar only shifts when she is home alone, and everyone around her just assumes the form he presents to the world — that of a pied crow — is his permanent one. 

The unruffled, impenetrable facade Lena’s mastered out of need strengthens the illusion of control. The world thinks that she’s nothing more than cold composure through and through, but the truth is that her disinterest is just an armor. The wall she hides the unsure and fragile parts of herself behind. 

Besides, it’s a matter of survival.

Being a Luthor wouldn’t be enough to protect her from the agents of the Magisterium should they catch wind of her _affliction_. They might decide it’s worth being studied, but it’s far more likely that Lena would end up on the stake. Just because no woman has been burned for a witch in two hundred years doesn’t mean people have forgotten how it’s done. 

Geneva is a whole ocean away from Metropolis, but the church has a long reach.

There is no place on Earth that’s really far enough.

***

The first time Lena’s daemon changes shape, she’s four years old.

Lena doesn’t know what form Einar had before she saw her mother drown. She supposes most people wouldn’t know either if they were asked, their minds too young to retain any memory that isn’t tied to trauma. 

She’s never bothered to find out. 

But what Lena _does_ remember with a cutting clarity that makes her bolt awake at night even now, is the form Einar took as she watched her mother die from the lake’s shore, knowing that something had gone horribly wrong, but too frozen up by fear to do anything about it. 

A _stoat_. 

A stoat, his winter coat immaculate, had curled around her neck as a soft scarf, warm tongue licking at the tears Lena hadn’t realized were pouring down her cheeks.

Einar has been many different forms since then, but not a stoat. 

He springs that one on her again once during an argument they’re having, and Lena stays as far away from him as she can bear for an entire week. The distance makes her sick with nausea, and her heart is cleaved in two with every breath, but she only relents when he shifts into something else. One moment, they’re at the opposite corners of Lena’s bedroom staring daggers at one another, completely at odds, the next a husky pup, tail between his legs, is pawing at her chest, wet nose pressed to her cheek.

“It hurt so much!” Einar cries into her neck, and Lena buries her face into his fur, sniffling back tears. “Please,” he begs. “Please don’t leave me like that again!” Even if Lena wanted to (she doesn’t) she can’t, but Einar is terrified and deaf to her reassurances.

They have other fights, as a daemon and their human are wont to do, but Lena doesn’t torture him (or herself) that way ever again. 

***

The next big shift happens the day of her father’s funeral. Lena doesn’t really recall the ceremony; only the rain, and Lex standing stiffly next to her, sheltering her under a black umbrella. There’s a lot of black around her that day. Her dress is black, as is Lex’s suit. Roses of a red so deep they seem black in the livid light of a day that never truly dawned cover the lid of Lionel’s casket. She and Lex are given a rosebud each to hold on to, and as her father is lowered into the graveyard’s muddy ground they throw the flowers down with him alongside a handful of gravel. 

Everything is black back at Luthor Manor too. The curtains and the runners over the ivory white tablecloths. Rot and bone — the words flash through Lena’s young mind while she tries to not throw up all over one of her late father’s business partners. 

“Come on.” She’s found a quiet corner as far away from her stepmother as physically possible without stepping out in the deluge when Lex touches her arm, a glint in his eye. “Let’s get away from the borefest.” 

Lena wouldn’t necessarily apply the descriptor to the circumstances — it’s more of a sadfest, honestly — but she leaps at the out Lex’s recklessness is offering. She just wants to get away from the endless stream of _sorry_ ’s and _poor children_ , far from adults that talk about her as though she does not possess ears. 

They turn as one toward Lillian — four pairs of eyes singling her out in the crowd — but she’s too busy playing the heartbroken wife to care what they get up to. At least for now. 

“Got something to show you.” Lex urges when he notices she’s lagging a bit behind. Jahi, his daemon, wraps sinuous around his arm, hissing her encouragement. Staring into her slitted eyes, Lena feels the familiar stab of jealousy — Jahi settled into the form of a horned viper more than a year ago and Einar…

Einar is currently a sparrow, perching on her shoulder. 

They take a quick detour to the kitchen — where Lex commandeers an entire tray of _canapés_ to split between them — before he leads her upstairs the long way round. Luthor Manor is old — some say it was constructed well before the Civil War — and the narrow stairs they use to reach the second floor are what Lillian disdainfully insists on calling the servants’ staircase. 

Nevermind that the help doesn’t use them anymore.

“In here.” He says, fishing for something in his pocket. 

“Father’s study?” Goosebumps pebble Lena’s arms. They’re not allowed there unless he’s — unless he — 

Grief squeezes the breath out of her in a wheeze.

“If Mother finds out…” She pushes out eventually, Einar peeking past her shoulder as though he fears the mere mention of Lillian can bring her wrath down on their heads. 

“I am the head of the household now.” Lex tells her resolutely, turning the doorknob. Another change. Father’s study is never left unlocked unless he’s in it. “This is ours. Mine and yours. And I say we can go inside Father’s study if we want to.” Still, Jahi slithers down from his arm and snakes back to the top of the stairs to make sure that the coast is clear the way they came. 

“Come on.” Before Lena can protest again, Lex tugs her inside. “I really wanna show you something.”

_Something_ turns out to be Father’s well stocked liquor cabinet.

“Lex, I’m— I don’t—” On her shoulder, Einar changes. From sparrow to chinchilla and then he plops himself on her lap, front paws grappling at the rim of the full shot glass Lex handed her to sniff at the liquor inside. His whiskers twitch at the strong smell wafting up from the liquid, and his beady eyes brim with disapproval. 

“Drink up.” Lex leads by example, draining his own glass. He sways a little and Jahi tangles on the floor at his feet, looking as if she’s about to fall asleep. He’s drunk already, Lena works out then, his cheeks flushed red, his eyes fever-bright. “It’ll warm you up,” he continues as she makes a face around her first sip. “Aren’t you cold? I am, and I can’t seem to warm up. I—” He stops, biting the inside of his cheek, and she swears she can’t remember ever seeing him this close to crying. “I—” 

The door slams open, Lillian storming through, and Lena won’t ever get to know whatever else he meant to say.

***

She’s shipped off to boarding school less than a week after Lillian surprises them getting drunk inside Lionel’s study, and Einar clings to the form of a porcupine for months after that. 

For months after her stepmother grabbed her arm too tightly at the airport and he charged in, leaving a smattering of quills embedded in the back of Lillian’s hand.

He’s a porcupine so often, it becomes his default form at school when Lena is around people.

***

Lena is fifteen going on sixteen when she falls in love with Andrea. 

It’s a forest fire, something that burned under the surface — unfelt and unseen — to catch Lena unawares. One day they’re just best friends, the next Lena’s heartbeat shudders through her, her breath hitches and stops whenever Andrea is close.

They sneak up to the roof one night after lights out. They’re not supposed to, obviously, and will be punished if they’re caught, but when Lena points that out Andrea only laughs, tosses her hair and says: “well, let’s not get caught then, silly.” 

Lena wishes she was half as brash as that. 

It’s odd, being alone in mischief with Andrea. When they’re allowed to head into town on weekends, Russell meets them outside the gates. He goes to Blue Ridge, the all-boy boarding school affiliated to Mount Helena and the three of them are inseparable. Get in trouble together too, more often than not — or at the very least, if one of them does, the teachers know the others are probably involved.

Atop the roof it’s quiet, serene with the school compound spread at their feet and the town’s lights glittering a few miles downhill. The weather is so clear they can see unobstructed for miles, and in the ageless light of the moon and star-studded sky, Lena feels reverent. 

“Here.” Andrea whispers, and offers her a joint she’s already lit. “C'mon, let's go sit down.” She points to a corner, where a soft-looking blanket has been laid out. Evidently, she planned ahead. 

“Okay.” Lena stares at the weed with a frown. She’s not against it — she can hold her liquor now and smokes cigarettes in the janitor’s closet as do most of the other girls in her year — but she’s just, she never tried. Besides, it smells kinda dank. Akin to the reek of skunks that rolls in through her room’s open window from the nearby fields when the weather warms. 

But Lena takes a first drag anyway. She doesn’t want Andrea to think she’s a wuss. She doesn’t want her to assume she’s anything like Leslie who won’t so much as order a hard lemonade when they cram — six to a table that could sit two — inside the local pub. 

The smoke is acrid, thicker in taste on her tongue than what she’s used to. Lena has to mask a cough, and to do so chokes the next pull down way too fast. Her head spins, and instead of lowering herself to the blanket with grace, she stumbles to her knees. Einar, who’s been busy showing off by changing form as fast as possible for the benefit of Arlo, Andrea’s already settled daemon, flops belly up, gaze a little vacant. 

(Andrea is the only one who _knows,_ not because there aren’t other students Lena’s age with her same problem, but — did you hear that Luthor’s daemon hasn’t settled? Can you imagine?)

“That, uh—” Andrea plucks the joint from her fingers, but she’s not laughing. Her eyes are soft with concern. “Hit a bit harder than expected.” Lena finishes weakly, squinting up at stars that she never knew dance the samba across the sky when left unattended. 

“The first time I smoked weed I puked all over Russell’s shoes.” Andrea snorts, and flicks ashes over the parapet. “He didn’t find it all that hilarious, though.” Arlo, who’s still hovering near an addled Einar, hides his snout behind his tail, and Lena’s pretty positive he’s laughing. “Oh, stop you.” The fox peeks at Andrea wholly unimpressed. “You were sick as well.” 

“We’re never having that again.” Einar’s regained enough control to talk aloud, which is something he never does unless they’re alone. He seems to realize his mistake just as Andrea’s eyes widen slightly, and dwindles into a butterfly, flying atop Lena’s head. 

Lena doesn’t know if it’s because Andrea mentioned Russell, or whether she’s still discombobulated by Einar speaking out of turn, but she takes the roach again — nearly all stub anyway — and sucks on it, burning her fingers. 

“Whoa there.” Andrea puts an arm around her shoulders, steadying her, and the contact sends sparks all over her. Lena feels the shock of Andrea’s nearness as if she’s put two fingers inside an electric socket. She flings the finished joint over the balustrade, and atop her head, Einar’s wings flutter a little faster. 

“You know you don’t have to prove how tough you are.” Andrea is so close Lena can smell her perfume, vetiver and spice, so close she can see her best friend’s pulse thrum against the side of her throat. It’s the weed pushing her to do something she’d never have the spine to try otherwise, that’s what she tells herself as she closes the distance left between them. It’s the weed making her feel euphoric and weightless, prompting her to kiss Andrea. 

It’s her heart, beating so loudly in her ears she doesn’t hear Einar’s frantic _what are you doings_ inside her mind, that fills to bursting when Andrea doesn’t pull back. 

She leans in, and then they are kissing, sudden but instinctive, and all the while Lena thinks that she might faint. Or puke. Or both. 

Andrea kisses her like she knows there’s a void yawning open in her chest, a place where light and warmth haven’t reached in a long time. She tastes of summer and cloves, and there’s no trace of awkwardness. No teeth-bumping-into-teeth embarrassment, no wrong angles; the two of them just _fit_. Lena’s body knows what she’s supposed to be doing, as though she’s kissed hundreds, thousands of other people before.

Andrea’s the first, and Lena’s so lucky — no other first kiss can be this _perfect_.

When they come apart for air, and Andrea pulls her tightly into the circle of her arms to cuddle, Einar floats across to Arlo and perches on his nose.

His delicate butterfly wings are sprayed in vibrant color. 

***

She’s never been this happy in her life.

Maybe she _had_ been, long ago when she was in Ireland with her mother, and with Lex, before Lillian separated them. When he’d take her up on the treehouse Father built for them and taught her to play chess. When he endlessly quizzed her on algebra problems three grades above hers. 

He writes still, but not as often, and his letters are made up of short, to the point sentences that lack warmth. He’s busy. Maybe, he’s mad for a reason Lena can’t begin too see. Possibly, he’s just outgrown her. Learning to lead LuthorCorp into the future, there’s not much he can still have in common with her. 

She thinks of writing to him about Andrea to see what he’ll have to say. To seek his approval, as she’s done so many other times. Goes as far as to jot down the first paragraph, but then she balls the paper up and throws it in the bin.

She has Andrea now. 

Lena doesn’t need anyone else.

***

“I’ve not—” Lena takes a deep breath that does nothing to slow down her heart. “I’ve never. You know.”

They’re in Andrea’s room. In Andrea’s bed, and Andrea’s thigh is pressing, grinding between hers. 

“It’s okay.” Andrea leans down to capture her lips softly, her thigh lifting away slightly so that her hand can take its place. “Do you want to stop?” 

“N— no.” Einar hovers one breath away from Andrea’s cheek — he’s always a butterfly if it’s the two of them alone — and when Lena’s hips rise into her hand searching for more friction, he bops her lightly. In the same breath, Arlo puts his front paws on the bed, fitting his muzzle under Lena’s hand. 

It’s taboo, to touch another person’s daemon. The texts, holy scriptures and science books alike, speak of a deep sense of revulsion connected to the act. But when Andrea cups her free hand around Einar, holding him in her palm, Lena doesn’t feel repulsed. She feels as though Andrea is holding her heart. And, as Lena scratches Arlo’s ears, Andrea gasps, eyes wild with desire. 

“I want it.” Lena grinds up again, moaning when Andrea pulls her panties to the side. She’s so wet, wetter than she was all the nights she touched herself and imagined this very moment. The first touch of Andrea’s fingers against her clit makes her entire body blaze. “I want you.”

“You have me.” Andrea’s damp mouth trails down to Lena’s neck, and the way she kisses there — like she’s trying to melt underneath her skin — has Lena aching for the sting of her teeth. “You have me, Lena.”

And she believes it, feeling cherished. _Loved_ , like never before.

***

Months later, during the school’s Midwinter Ball, Lena walks in on Andrea and Russell kissing. 

They’ve gone to the party together — three peas in a pod, as per usual — but Andrea’s excused herself to use the toilet, and when Russell disappears too, well it’s safe to say things are a bit suspicious. 

It’s Einar who whispers about it in her ear, as usual picking up on social cues Lena is too shy to be attuned to. She scoffs, but he doesn’t let up. Even pricks her finger when she tries to brush him off of her shoulder. 

“Alright, fine. I’ll go check on her, but you’re _wrong_.” 

He’s right.

“Lena, wait!” Andrea calls after her, pushing Russell back, when Lena dashes for the door. “I can explain! It’s not what it looks like!” Lena wants to laugh at that. Bitter mirth bubbles uncontrollable and hysterical at the back of her throat. What else is it supposed to look like? — that’s what she wants to ask, scream in Andrea’s face. Russell had her pressed against the wall, mouth slanted to hers, one hand in her hair and the other—-

— the other bunching Andrea’s already short dress up, to slip underneath. 

Andrea’s lipstick is smeared — Lena notes with a sort of cold detachment, as though she’s sitting in the audience, not a player in her own tragedy — and her hairdo is coming undone. Out of them, she’s the one who looks the way a broken-hearted person should. Lena’s sure she can even act her part. Same way she pretended to love Lena back, although it dawns on her just now, she never heard her say it out loud. “Lena, please!” 

Lena quickens her step, eyes blurry with tears and that’s why, ultimately, Andrea manages to catch up. They’re outside the ballroom, just in time to hear the next song start. It’s a slow dance. Lena had meant to ask Andrea to dance, but every note is acid dripping on an open wound. The bass thunders in time with Lena’s heart, and it’s Andrea’s face that looks splotchy in the strobe lights. Not hers. She feels oddly calm, even though Einar is a tight ball of bared fangs and quivering spines. 

“Lena, just listen to me for a second, okay?” Andrea grabs her wrist, too hard, the way Lillian had done what feels like a lifetime ago, but Einar is too pain-struck, and Lena is too soft to physically hurt her back. “Don’t be such a child.”

She rips her hand free, and Andrea’s nails leave red welts on her inner wrist, where the skin is thinner. Fitting, all considering. There’s matching claw marks on her heart.

“At least I’m not a _whore_.”

The words drip out of Lena with such venom it’s a wonder Andrea doesn’t drop dead on the spot. 

“Hey, now.” Russell puts himself between them, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Let’s not. Lena, that’s not—” 

She may already regret what she said to Andrea, but she feels no guilt when she back-hands him in the face. Hard. 

Maybe it’s a coward’s way out, but Lena doesn’t hang around to give Russell time to react. She whirls away, tears she managed to hold back so far spilling down her cheeks, and makes her way through the ballroom at a run. 

Only when she’s halfway to the dorms, cold and shivery in the dark, does Lena register that Einar is not a porcupine anymore. The butterfly dances in front of her eyes, as though leading the way, and with each beat of his wings the color her love for Andrea had put there dims. Until there’s nothing. Until Einar is grey-brown and lifeless-looking.

A butterfly no more. Only a moth. 

***

She was almost happy, She almost had a girlfriend. She got a taste of love. 

Einar almost _fucking_ settled.

That’s it, Lena thinks as she cries silent tears into her pillow, later that night. The dress hangs half-torn from a pale shoulder, as sad-looking as she feels. That’s why she’s crying, really.

Being an _almost_ , is what hurts the worst.

(she’s the talk of the school for the next three weeks - _OMG_ , I didn’t know her daemon wasn’t settled! And he changed right in the middle of the ball! I’d _die_ if it were me — Lena doesn’t even care.)

**Author's Note:**

> [Find more stories, and news about my writing here!](https://kendrene.tumblr.com/)


End file.
